Sometimes I cannot but help think that PO is long overdue:

12,000-mile trip to have seafood shelled

By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:28am GMT 16/11/2006

A seafood firm was accused of "environmental madness" yesterday for choosing to send langoustines on a 12,000-mile round trip to Thailand to have their shells removed.
After the shellfish is caught in Scottish waters, it will be frozen and shipped to the Far East in containers, where it will be peeled by hand and sent back to Britain to be sold as scampi in supermarkets and restaurants.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=CTRI0ATL5IPBFQFIQMGSFF4AVCBQWIV0?xml=/news/200 6/11/16/nprawn16.xml

Not quite unusual. Shrimps from the german north sea region are being shipped to Morocco for peeling since decades.

Though, that's a way of "only" 5000 miles or so ..